How old does a tree have to be, for it to be turned into a table? I ask only because even after the stain rubbed off ours, we couldn't tell how long it took for it to come into our threshold and take up service. We gave thanks around it, spilled hot soup and salt and oil, tumblers of ice water. A child scratched wax letters on its edge and another bent her head and cried after seeing for the first time the shadow of the world wound into its darkest whorl. Some nights, I thought I heard the click of mahjong tiles from when my aunts drank whisky and played for peso bills. To mark our rituals of starting over, we offered a bowl of fruit— one for each month of the new year.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.